The present invention relates generally to the field of air monitoring—such as for agricultural pathogens, allergenic pollens, asbestos or silica particles that can harm lungs, man-made metallic dust that can cause shorts in electrical equipment, or other airborne particles—and more particularly, to a removable media cartridge that can be used with a particle collection device.
One example of an airborne particle for which monitoring may be desired is a mold spore. Farms and vineyards can suffer from certain types of mold as winds can carry mold spores for many miles. Depending on climatic conditions, losses for vineyards may range from about 15 percent to about 40 percent or more of the harvest. The lost in harvest results in lost revenue, profit, and jobs. There is a need to cost-effectively and rapidly detect damaging mold spores so that control and mitigation measures can be quickly developed and deployed to save a harvest.
Another example of an airborne particle for which monitoring may be desired is pollen. Many people are allergic to pollen. There remains an unmet need to provide individuals with personalized, prompt and actionable information regarding their exposure to allergens.
Yet another example of an airborne particle for which monitoring may be desired are electrostatic dust particles or fibers that can cause shorts in the massive amount of electronics that must perform at very high levels of reliability in server farms.
In other words, it is desirable to monitor indoor critical environments such as those in clean room manufacturing, compound pharma, industrial hygiene and processes (e.g., fermentation process room), and the like where there is interest in capturing and identifying particles especially those that can contaminate and be damaging to the manufacturing process. Unlike pollens or molds, the particles here can be man-made metallic or process related fibers, dust, minerals (e.g., silica and asbestos), and general debris that may become airborne.
For example, a server facility may be interested in monitoring for electrostatic dust and fibers that can cause shorts in the equipment. In the case of compound pharma it may be of interest to detect for bacteria and fungi. And a fermentation column at a winery may be interested in monitoring for certain airborne yeast that cause foul smells in bottled wine. Mold is a type of fungi which includes mushrooms, yeasts, molds, rusts, smuts, puffballs, truffles, morels, and moulds. In short, depending upon the application, it is desirable to monitor not just molds and pollens in airborne particulate.
Again there is a need for cost-effectively and rapidly detecting particles of interest. For this purpose, there is an unmet need for low-cost and effective removable media with which to capture particles of interest for remote or local automated inspection.